Two saturdays ago, I bought a bike from the upstairs folks, who are selling and giving away their posessions before they depart (at the end of this week). It's a vast improvement from my rusty old bike, which I bought for two reasons: it was cheap, and no one would want to steal it.
This Saturday, I took the new bike for its first major trial ride, up the Minuteman Trail from the Davis Square extension (very close to our house) to Lexington Center. I don't have a map that tells me how many miles that is, but it was at least 15 or so each way. Lots of stuff along the trail worth checking out on future trips, too. And the Trader Joe's in Arlington happens to be right on the trail, which I didn't realize. It was a bonus, because I was in pretty desperate need of water and sustenance by the time I got to it on the return journey.
Seasonal inventory rotation at seemingly all the retail chains in the area has dealt us a cruel blow. It seems that if you want patio furniture, you need to buy it in the spring. We made a failed bid for some chairs and tables to put out on our porch. I'm sorry, Target, we didn't have a patio in the spring. And we haven't thought of any smaller places that actually sell patio furniture, either. Alas.
And we wound up the weekend with a trip to Portsmouth, NH, our favorite town that starts with a "P" south of Portland, ME. Mainly just walked around, and had dinner at the Brewing Company and stayed to watch a good part of the Red Sox game. The Yankees were satisfyingly trounced.
I inherited some computer goodies from Simon before he left for Houston. A much-needed printer, and a happy little original "bondi blue" iMac. I've had a lot of fun rehabbing the iMac. It seems like its main problem was that 32MB was hardly enough to run the operating system without resorting to virtual memory, which is slow slow slow. For $40, I got 256MB, which is more than enough for OS 9, and even enough for OS X, which I've been wanting to try out forever. Much time has been spent pining at the Apple store at the Cambridgeside Galleria. Apple hardware is just too dang expensive. I haven't really had a new computer in about 4 years. Anyway, having a mac fall in my lap is going to tide me over until the next version of OS X comes out and I have enough dosh saved for one of the spiffy new G5's.
I love OS X. There's something about any version of Windows that just stinks like a cubicle. OS X is pretty, smart, and fun. It's unix, so of course it's smart, and fun in a kind of unixy kind of way. But the eye candy is so over the top that it's hard not to love it, and want to have fun with it. It comes with a CD of developer tools. Bwah ha ha.
Oh, and while I'm on the subject of computers I've loved... My uncle bought us a TI-994a for Christmas when I was 10, and it's where I first learned anything about programming. Well, apparently, there are enough other people who loved their TI enough that there are not just one, but several emulators that you can get which turn your fancy modern PC into a wonderful 16k Texas Instsruments home computer from 1984. Still, it's not right if you don't plug it into a TV.
10 PRINT "Ezra is cool"
20 GOTO 10
So what's up here? Well, Ez and I are going through a little bit of a Harry phase (Harry Potter, that is) since we've just finished up book 5. In all honesty, I expected to be more thrilled by it, but I wouldn't say I was disappointed either--and considering the expectations it had to live up to... The central characters are pretty much alive now, so she'd really have to make them go horribly astray to screw things up at this point. Well, if you're reading this and you haven't read the Harry books yet, get over whatever false impressions or pre-conceptions you might have (ignore the film hoopla if you possibly can--your imagination will do a far better job) and just read them. You won't be sorry.
Suki is gnawing on me. Hm... must be looking for chow. Soon...
On the musical selections, I've just heard from Bing Crosby, The New Pornographers, and Lush. Ezra was listening to bluegrass on the Internet earlier. I'm not sure if it was totally intentional.
We are thinking about finally getting a good digital camera. We're going to get a good setup going for this gosh dang website soon, or else!
Getting ready to pack things up here in State College and head back to the homestead and the cats. Saw Doug for lunch yesterday before he had to go see the cake lady. Saw Terri's aunts and uncles (well, the ones that live around here) on Friday night.
It's been a really restful vacation, and while I'm ready to go back home, I'm not really ready to be done relaxing.
The rain held off, and we spent the afternoon walking around all the arts fest booths. Picked up a pottery bowl, a little wire sculpture, and an etching. Got some yummy Indian food at one of the stands. We headed back to Terri's folks place, just as the rain started in earnest.
Got up at 7am this morning because of an alarm clock accident. Now Terri's taking a nap. I have been spending the morning getting Moveable Type working on RCN's servers. I'm finally tired of trying to figure out why I can't get to my home server from outside the home network. It is technically against the terms of service, and it seems like they're starting to just block HTTP traffic. I like having the friendly little server box that delivers this site right in my office, but I also like having my site work, so I've just decided to run it off of RCN's servers. It's actually fine, since they let home users have cgi scripts, which is kind of unusual for a plain old ISP. Blah blah blah. Gonna go get ready to go the the arts fest, so that I'll be ready when Terri wakes up.
Got up early to see Dad off and say goodbye before he went to work. Found out that Mom finally gotten Duchess back in at 1 am, after everybody else had given up. I burned all the digital photos we took on my folks' digital camera to CD. I think it's kind of whetted our taste for a digital camera. Then we played a couple of games of The Simpsons Road Rage against Estee on her Playstation 2. We set off from the farm at about 10:30am. Juj, Karen, and Joy came over to see us off.
Got another couple of chapters of Harry in on the drive to State College. Made it here at about 3:00pm, I think. We said hello to Terri's mom and the cats, and went into town at about 4:00. Things are gearing up for the Arts Festival. It had just finished pouring outside, so it seemed like the big childrens' day procession was cancelled. We got a bag of kettle popcorn, and just walked around. Terri pointed out all the things that have changed. Which stores have closed, opened, moved. Terri got a drink at Irving's Bagels, and I noted that they have free Wi-Fi; potentially useful later if I feel like lugging my laptop over.
Came back, had some yummy veggie lasagna that Terri's mom made. Got the scoop on some of the woodworking that Terri's dad's been doing. Watched a bit of the Red Sox game. They won, barely, and while I have faith that Kim would have successfully closed without them, there were some bad strike calls at the end, and that's never really a great way to end the game.
I'd never been to Falling Water before, and I've sort of had it in mind to go for a while, so we decided to go this trip. Went with Mom, Estee, & Grandma. Abs was off, but she had errands to run. It was what I expected. Definitely worth seeing. Especially since it's relatively close to the farm. Surprised how much art they just had lying around right where the Kaufmann family seems to have left it, like Tiffany lamps, a Diego Rivera drawing, and all kinds of Mexican sculpture. I read a chapter of Harry to all assembled on the way there, until the road got so curvy my stomach wouldn't take any more, so I finished it on the way back.
Got back to the farm, saw Dad briefly, and then went into town to see Greg, Dawn, & young William. He's so cute! He seems to have spent his first six months well, doubling in size. Seems smart, definitely communicates with people, and he seems really happy. Many pictures to come! Greg and Dawn seem to be doing well, too.
Made it home before Dad went to bed. About 30 seconds after we got home, Abby and Dan came back from the jazz show Dan's uncle was playing in that they had gone to. In the process of everybody coming home and opening the door, Duch(ess) got out. So we spent some time hunting in the rain and dark trying to lure him back inside, but he was nowhere to be found.
Went into Pittsburgh today with Estee. Abby was working at the golf course (as usual). We went to Squirrel Hill. I haven't been there in ages. The Bookworm, my favorite used book store while I was in high school is gone. There was a different one sprouted up a block down, though, and we spent some time there. Got some coffee while walking up Forbes Ave, where there was more stuff for "world music" types than I remember. Got roped into going to Barnes & Noble to use the bathroom, and ended up buying some books there, since I didn't really come with any in hand, just a couple of months' worth of New Yorkers that I'd gotten behind in reading.
We wondered if the folks wanted to go out to dinner, but there were so many leftovers from yesterday, we just went back home and celebrated the official anniversary there.
The picnic yesterday was pretty low key. Way too much food, since Terri & I made a pretty full menu, then Juj brought over his famous ribs, and a bunch of other stuff. Found a winner in the experimental barbecue chicken I made. April sent flowers, and I think Si called. We also speakerphoned Grandpa Ball.
Today we drove from Boston to Western Pennsylvania to make a surprise visit to my parents. Abby & Estee kept it secret. We just showed up at about 7pm, and only Estee, who was helping my Mom feed the sheep, seemed to notice that we pulled up the driveway. My dad was doing something in the garage, and I had to creep up behind him and ask him if he needed any help. So then we went out to the sheep area & surprised Mom, too. It took her a second or two after she saw me to think that it was weird that I was there.
It only took us 10 hours, but it was extremely hot on the way. The air conditioner wasn't really a match for the sun beating into the car. Still, it wasn't horribly uncomfortable, and it went quickly because Terri read many chapters of the new Harry Potter aloud. We don't generally drive straight through without stopping in State College, but since we decided to drive all Saturday instead of leaving after work some evening, it was fine, and traffic was light since it was right in the middle of the holiday weekend.
So tomorrow, we're doing something festive for their 30th anniversary since Abby has to work on Monday, the actual day.